Do not mess with my chocolate~

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A blistering rally on cocoa markets is starting to hit the wallets of chocolate lovers, with prices of pure, rich products climbing the most.

Addicts who savor the intense semi-sweet taste of chocolate with high cocoa content are likely to shell out more in coming months as speculators show no signs of curbing a buying frenzy that has kept cocoa prices hovering at 15-year highs.

Prices of other sweets with chocolate coatings, however, are less affected since cocoa is only a fraction of the total contents, while in Germany a price war and weak economy has forced makers to swallow the extra costs.

"The way it looks now we will have to raise our prices considerably again next year," said an official at Dutch premium chocolate maker Droste, which raised prices by four percent earlier this year.

"The rising prices for cocoa...are the topic of the day in our management discussions," said sales and marketing director Henk Bijma.

Droste, the third largest Dutch producer of pure chocolate products, is especially hit by cocoa prices since it specializes in semi-sweet chocolate containing up to 72 percent cocoa mass.

Industry giant Nestle pushed up the cost of chocolate on the Swiss market by an average of 4.5 percent in August, with prices of various products rising between 0.5 percent and seven percent.

Cocoa bean prices have increased steadily over the past two years due to deficits in the supply/demand balance on world markets, but speculative buying has sent them shooting up in recent months.

Earlier this week cocoa bean prices on London markets surged to fresh 15-year peaks, up nearly 50 percent since the start of the year.

On Thursday afternoon, most active second-month futures were trading at around 1,430 pounds ($2,223) per ton, up from 978 at the start of the year and a low of 547 pounds in December 1999.

Cocoa beans, however, are also priced in dollars and the weakening of the dollar against European currencies has helped dampen the rise for many European makers, Nestle's Rubin said.

In Britain, a sweets industry spokesman pointed out that many popular confectionery products contain a range of products including milk, nuts and sugar.

"Cocoa is important, but is nevertheless just one of a number of raw material ingredients in chocolate," said the spokesman for the Biscuit, Cake, Chocolate and Confectionery Alliance.

The British unit of Nestle does not immediately respond to fluctuations in the market price of commodities, a spokeswoman said.

"It is too early to say whether the retail price will be affected in the longer term. We are obviously monitoring the situation very closely," she added.

Chocolate addicts might want to head to Germany, where manufacturers are under pressure to keep prices under control.

"German industry tells me almost every day they would like to raise chocolate prices but they cannot," a cocoa trader said.

"The German economy is in a mess and in bad times people cut down on luxury products like chocolate. Germany's chocolate industry is working well under capacity and retail prices are down," he added.

German market researcher GfK recently estimated German January to end June chocolate sales were down 4.3 percent on the year in volume and down 5.5 percent by value.

Discount supermarkets in Germany have been slashing prices of chocolate as a loss-leader to lure shoppers in.

"Big brands cannot raise prices against such pressure from discount retailers, who are raising their market share. The German chocolate industry is just having to take the cocoa price increase without passing it on," the trader said. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...m/chocolate_dc

Ok, here's the plan, we'll all ban together and act like we just do not care. A National No Candy Bar Day. Yeah that's it. It'll catch them all by surprise and they will not even consider raising the costs ever again. LOL
Pleeeeease don't mess with my chocolate.

ONE WHOLE DAY??????????? the whole thing?????????? well i need to know when so i can go the day before LOL we sure do know what is important in life do we not. who said give me chocolate or give me death, oh right that would have been me.